Small Town Horror

When I wrote the post "The Mute and the Monster", I contrasted Martin Pasko's run on Saga of the Swamp Thing to Len Wein's original Swamp Thing series by pointing out that the latter was largely a consecutive string of one-and-done single issues, thereby implying that the former was not. Upon retrospect this assertion remains true, though only to a certain degree.

I've explained previously that the first thirteen issues of Saga of the Swamp Thing revolves around our hero's apparently psychic bond with a young mute girl who, in this stage of our discourse, we'll refer to as "Casey". While this thread runs through each of the first thirteen issues, there are six of them, issues 3 through 8, in which it is only a running subplot, dealt with in internal monologues, flashbacks, and interludes. The rest of these issues deal with completely separate plot points that are wrapped up for the most part by the end of the issue in which they are introduced. They reminded me a lot of the serialized science fiction television shows of the 90s: the bad guy of the week shows up and causes havoc, and good guys put it down by the end of the episode, but meanwhile the evil yet charismatic mayor is still trying to turn himself into a giant snake demon so he can eat the graduating class of Sunnydale High.

In this installment of Avatar of the Green we'll be exploring the first three of these "side quest" issues of Saga of the Swamp Thing. At this point in our tale we'll seeing more of how Alec and Casey's paths begin to diverge, leading up to greater revelations in upcoming installments. 

When we last left Alec and Casey, they had just escaped from the Sunderland agent who went by the name Harry Kay, as well as the assassin known only as Grasp. Having stowed away in a box car of a freight train, they are making their way seemingly at random toward St Louis, passing through the small town of Rosewood.

Issue 3 of Saga of the Swamp Thing opens seemingly moments later, with Alec and Casey being attacked by a small group of vampires on the train. During his fight with the vampires, Alec is thrown from the train, thus beginning his separation from Casey and his quest to find her again.

Upon arriving in Rosewood, Alec encounters the one family that hasn't been either killer by the vampires or transformed into one of their number. Eventually the family patriarch, driven by a fantatical determination, detonates the nearby dam, completely submerging the down and destroying the vampires in the deluge of running water, though it leaves only Alec and one young boy alive. 

Following the train tracks out of town, Alec eventually comes across a railway station where he sees a news story by Liz Tremayne, reporter and author of the speculative book on the urban legend of the "swamp man", on a television through a window. There he learns that Casey was discovered in the train car in Pineboro Arkansas, the site of a recent string of gruesome child murders.

While this story itself isn't terribly groundbreaking, what I find striking about it is how much of a product it is of the horror of it's day, namely the late 70s and early 80s. These aren't the languid sensual vampires of the 90s, and they certainly aren't the sparkly teen romance vampires of the 00s. These vampires are a plague, with their intent focused almost entirely on feeding and propagation. In a matter of days they were able to take over an entire town, requiring a solution who's victory was pyrrhic at best.

In issue 4 we learn that the Pineboro child killer is one "Uncle Barney", host of a local children's television show. Uncle Barney, we discover, had made a bargain with a demon for success and charisma, in exchange for allowing the demon to periodically possess his body to carry out it's murderous desires.

 We also learned that Casey has been remanded to a juvenile care facility, one which she uses her telekinetic abilities to escape. When Uncle Barney is caught by the local police, the demon abandons him and possesses Paul Feldner, Liz Tremayne's producer.  Swamp Thing arrives in Pineboro just as the possessed Feldner kidnaps the runaway Casey. Though initially overpowered, Alec uses his psychic link with Casey to follow them to a nearby meat processing plant.  Though not physically a match for the demon, Alec nonetheless manages to trick the demon into destroying itself by luring it into a cold storage unit (apparently demons are vulnerable to refrigeration?)

Swamp Thing is discovered badly injured inside the processing plant, and is taken into medical custody. We learn on the final panel that Liz Tremayne is having him sent to a private medical facility owned by the conglomerate she works for, the Sunderland Corporation.

I've mentioned in previous posts that I believe that one of the biggest challenges that Pasko faced when writing Saga of the Swamp Thing was the limitations that the Comics Code Authority placed on creators of the time. It's clear in this issue that Pasko had a lot to say that the CCA wouldn't have allowed, things I suspect we're about the CCA itself.  While speaking to the program director of the television station that aired the "Uncle Barney Show", Liz Tremayne implores him to replace it with something other than a carbon copy of the same format. She reminds him that twelve children, despite being constantly warned not to go with strangers, were lured away by a man who hosted a show that painted the world in shades of harmlessness, a "cozy little world" that "break[s] down neatly into good guys and bad guys".

I believe that this was Pasko's commentary on many superhero comics  of the time, where  the hero always won, the villain always lost, and morals we're  often clearly defined  Keep in mind I haven't had an opportunity to interview Mr. Pasko (YET!). His statement may very well have simply been againsr shows like Mister Rogers, on which Uncle Barney was no doubt patterned, by I hope to be able to confirm my theory in the near future.

Issue 5 opens with Swamp Thing awakening bound and being taken to the Barclay Clinic, an ominously isolated facility owned and operated by the Sunderland Corporation.  Though he breaks free briefly, Alec is subdued by massive amounts of tranquilizers and brought before the facility head, Doctor Dennis Barclay, who "psychically heals" the Swamp Thing's wounds.

Liz arrives soon after and begins comparing notes with Barclay, the two of them realizing that they've both become pawns of Sunderland. Alec, meanwhile, discovers several disfigured beings in the basement of the facility, kept in induced comas. When Harry Kay arrives, he reveals that Barclay's healing "gift" had actually been a ruse, with the comatose beings empathically absorbing the injuries of anyone they were linked to. Swamp Thing frees the beings, who take their revenge on the facility's security staff, while Alec, Liz, and Dennis make their escape. Kay takes off in a helicopter, calling in reinforcements and requesting a meeting with his superiors aboard the "S.S. Haven".

Sadly, there isn't much of "Casey" in this issue (if you aren't familiar with this arc, I'll be explaining when we get to issue 6 why I usually put her name in quotations). We are simply given an expository explanation that she disappeared with Feldman sometime during the time after Swamp Thing was discovered in the processing plant and before his arrival at the Barclay Clinic.

If you're intrigued by the mystery of this girl, don't worry because I'll be talking about her in great detail in next week's installment of Avatar of the Green. I'll be disrupting my normal routine and taking a break from covering the New 52 Swamp Thing while I get caught up on my reading in preparation for Rotworld.  In the meantime, I'll be picking up where we left off in this installment, beginning with Saga of the Swamp Thing #6!

Before I begin the final wrap up, I want to give a much deserved shout out to Darrin and Ruth Sutherland of the Warlord Worlds, Trekker Talk, and Xenoxoic Xenophiles podcasts.  Not only will these alliterative adventurers regale you by relating terrific tales of daring do (sigh....words are fun), but they are some of the nicest people I've never met in real life, and have been tremendously supportive of my tiny niches of the blogosphere. You should definitely check out their stuff if you're not already.

That'll do it for this installment of Avatar of the Green, Parliamentarians. As always, I welcome any good natured discussions about the issues covered in this post, about Swamp Thing and the other characters of the pre-Vertigo dark corner of the DC universe, and about comics in general. Feel free to hit me up on the Avatar of the Green Facebook page, or on Twitter @G_M_Richter.

Until next time, think Green and be epic!